


Your Words Are Robbery

by dedougal



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF!Stiles, Future Fic, M/M, Magic!Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 18:53:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedougal/pseuds/dedougal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles is dragged back to Beacon Hills, he has to face everything he left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Words Are Robbery

**Author's Note:**

> This is all due to the wonderful Dazedrose, who did everything from cheerleading to betaing to coming up with the title (inspired by Blink 182) and there are no words to describe what a fantastic friend and fandom buddy she is. I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Edit: and now there's art! Dazedrose did the most amazing, wonderful art for this story and I am speechless. <3

[](http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa157/mrs_pring/My%20stuff/YourWordsarerobery2_zpse0c5c10a.jpg)

In the past, he would have been gratified by the eyes following him as he rolled into town. Nowadays, though, they only prickled at the very edges of his consciousness, a mild irritation, annoyance. It wasn’t as though he was trying to be anonymous. He just hadn’t been back, here. He’d turned down the invites to the few weddings, to the more common funerals. Events that seemed significant in other people’s lives.

Stiles grimaced as he climbed off his bike. He’d forgotten how the summer months could turn the whole area into a dust-drenched firetrap, grass brown, tinder waiting for a spark. He’d ridden through the night, rolling off and wrapping himself in the old sleeping bag he had strapped to the back of the bike when he was too tired to carry on, when the road had danced in front of his eyes like some charmed snake. He’d not managed more than a few hours.

It had been a while since he’d felt any pressure to return home but urgency was all he had now.

 

His dad leaned against the door. He’d retired a few years ago, mildly protesting, mainly glad. He had fewer wrinkles marring his forehead than the last few years he’d spent as Sheriff but the sudden reappearance of Stiles was sure to bring back some of the worry and care that had burdened him. Stiles was aware that he wasn’t exactly a harbinger of anything other than trouble. 

“Your room is still there.” His dad wasn’t exactly glad to see him. Stiles probably deserved that. He hadn’t exactly left his dad on good terms either. He ignored the way that the seventeen year old he’d spent a whole lot of time dampening down inside of him tried to yell, shout and break free, tried to tell him to apologize. His dad headed for the kitchen. Stiles hovered in the doorway. He should follow, perhaps, offer to get dinner. Then he remembered why he was here.

“I just wanted to let you know I was in town. I thought you’d hear about it soon enough.” Stiles shrugged when there was no further comment from his dad. “I’m going to dump my duffle and head out.” There was a grunt, but nothing else. And Stiles shook his head at himself. What had he expected? Hugs? He didn’t deserve them anymore, after all.

 

The road to the old Hale house was still familiar and almost unchanged. The woods were a little wilder, the trees seemingly closer together. Stiles could feel eyes on his back as he swept up the gravel track. It seemed better maintained and the house looked almost whole as he shook off his helmet. It was still creepy as fuck. Stiles watched the porch for a long minute, eyes hard, before turning to hand his helmet on the handlebars. And when he turned back, Derek was there.

Stiles should have expected that. In the past he might have jumped, might have yelled out. Now, with everything buried deep, his only reaction was to resume his fixed stare and wait. Derek had called him – summoned him – and Stiles wasn’t about to make himself any more vulnerable by speaking first. He’d faced down more Alphas than he wanted to really admit to, more creatures bigger than him, stronger than him. Not more deadly than him, though. He’d proven that too.

“Stiles.” Derek was as curt as ever. He didn’t even have the grace to look older, still as impossible as ever. Memories of the last time they’d spoke soured the initial assessment, though. Stiles didn’t exactly bear grudges, not really, but there was sometimes things that rankled and poisoned and were unforgivable.

“Derek.” He tried for the same tone, flat and disinterested. Idly, he wondered what Derek thought when he looked at Stiles now. He knew he’d changed. There was something ironic in the fact that his uniform of heavy jeans, dark t-shirts and leather jackets bore more in common with Derek in the past than himself. Derek wasn’t wearing those. He didn’t even have on one of those ridiculous grey wife beaters that Stiles had loved and hated in equal measure. Derek was in a suit, a dark charcoal grey with a green silk tie. He looked like some kind of GQ model. Werewolf gone Wall Street.

Derek was still balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to fight. It took all of Stiles’ control to spread his palms, roll his shoulders back, present himself as less of a threat. Derek didn’t relax. “Scott’s been missing for a week.”

“I know. You told me that.” Stiles leaned back onto his bike, hitching a hip against the seat, and waited. Another tense, uncomfortable silence wove itself between them until Derek let out a noise halfway between a growl and a grunt.

“You’d better come in.” Derek didn’t turn his back on Stiles as he pushed open the door, holding his other hand out in a mixture of welcome and warning. “We need to talk.”

 

The house was bright, inside. That was surprising. It was also unsettling. Stiles scanned the sunny rooms, seeking hiding places, prey or predators. Anything out of place. The place screamed money and maintenance. “So where are you hiding the wife?” Stiles asked. He might have been quite sarcastic.

“Erica.” That was unexpected.

“What? You and Erica…?” Stiles couldn’t contain his derision.

“She’s responsible for the décor. Not for- I’m not-“ Derek’s eyebrows drew down in that familiar v-shape. “I’m not attached.”

Stiles waited again, silent and watchful. It was almost fun to watch Derek stumble his way through their interactions, a reversal of all the times Stiles had babbled and fallen and acted like an idiot in front of Derek. Finally Derek gestured to the sofa and sat down in an armchair that had a pile of books on the floor beside it. It was so domestic and innocuous that Stiles had a moment of realizing he was the one who didn’t fit in. He was the abnormality now.

That made him throw off his coat, lean back uncaring of the dirt from the road on his jeans, the dust on his boots. He wanted, childishly, to make a mess, scuff up the room. Then he became aware that Derek’s attention had shifted. He kept his hands by his side and didn’t attempt to cover up the thick black marks trailing up and down his arms. Stiles had accepted his tattoos as part of him, both the ones he’d voluntarily had done and the ones that he’d been forced into. He remembered Derek’s tattoo, the triskelion, high on his back. Stiles had avoided anything similar. His knots were Gordian not Celtic.

“It had been quiet, for months. Hunters keep most of the random strays out of the area even if they think they can tangle with us. No hint of trouble from any quarter. And then Scott vanished without a word or any sign of a struggle. We can’t find him, Allison can’t find him. Her father can’t find him.” Derek’s hands curled on his thighs, creasing the neat dress pants. “You’re…”

“A last resort.” Stiles should feel complimented but he knew that Derek must have been really desperate to dig out his contact details. Stiles had half suspected that Derek and the rest of the pack had lost his number. “What do you know?”

Derek laid out the way they’d tracked Scott’s movements, his ridiculous round from community college to vet to home to college. Homebody werewolfing. It was a million miles from Stiles’ nomadic existence. Strange and wonderful. Derek watched him as he mulled it over, tension thrumming in the air.

“You got anything of Scott’s?” Stiles watched as Derek went to the mantelpiece, pulled off an ornament and threw it at Stiles. A picture, a lock of hair, a drop of blood all wrapped in a sealed glass case. They’d paid attention at least, building up tracking talismans. Stiles hummed in approval. “I’m going to need a space. This can get messy.”

Derek pushed himself up and led the way to the basement. Down here it was more like the house Stiles could remember. It was dark, colder too and the walls still had some scorch marks. Small cells, with heavy barred doors, were visible in the gloom. It seemed the right sort of place for dark deeds. Derek led him through into an open space, bars and chains primed and ready against one wall. Some things never changed.

It took a moment’s scrabbling in his pocket but eventually Stiles came up with enough charcoal to draw a decent sized circle. Part of the whole ritual, he guessed. In some ways, he didn’t need it. He could – and had – track someone for miles with only a talisman and his will. But he had the sense he was going to need all his strength for this and the trouble that was going to come. He still hesitated for a minute after sitting down in the middle of his circle. Then he peeled off his shirt and tossed it in Derek’s general direction. Derek caught it, of course. No matter how tame he was on the surface, he was still a werewolf. That was another thing that would never change.

Stiles gave himself a pat on the back as he realized Derek wasn’t looking away or giving him privacy. Instead Derek’s eyes were drinking in the patterns on his skin. His tats stretched up over both his arms, spiraling across his pecs and twisting back and forth across his abs before dropping below his waistband. There were alpha spikes – a sharp triad, more a brand than a tattoo – peeking over his hip. Stiles had tried to cover that one but it never took. His back was covered too, wings and stars and legendary creatures he’d pretty much proved were fictional. He wasn’t going to stick a kanima on his skin, after all. There was power in signs and symbols and he couldn’t run the risk of them being used against him.

Most of the work was basic black, but there was the odd slash of red here and there. It was to one of the red lines, a swirl that circled his left nipple in a trail of neat dots before broadening into a ribbon across his shoulder. The touch centered Stiles, the heart touch woke his power. He felt the talisman rise off the floor and float in front of him. He kept up his slow stroke, pads of his fingertips, back and forth. Stiles’s awareness of Derek’s eyes was gone now. Instead he was focused on Scott. The talisman began to glow.

“North. He’s… underground? In a cave? Basement? Not clear. It’s dark.” Stiles pressed his fingers in harder, a twinge of pain lending urgency to his location spell. It wasn’t enough and Stiles couldn’t feel much beyond the general direction and the taint of earth. He hated doing this but another moment’s fumbling in his pocket and he found the knife he kept there. A practiced flick and Stiles had the blade ready. Heart’s blood would be the best, the most efficacious. Only the best for Scott, after all. It didn’t really hurt and Stiles ignored the soft sound Derek made to focus on the drops of blood dripping from the dot nearest his heart. Some of the drops floated across the circle, turning the areole of light around the talisman red.

The location didn’t sharpen much. Stiles had a sense of distance but that was all. He could feel himself tiring and ended the spell, catching the talisman before it smashed to the concrete ground. “He’s about twenty miles away. There’s… If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was hiding him. Someone like me or who knows about me, anyway.” Stiles pushed himself to his feet and scuffed the edges of the circle, dissipating the charge he could still feel in the room. Derek relaxed – something about his shoulders – when Stiles did that before handing his t-shirt back.

“Should narrow our search. There’s maps upstairs. In the library.” Derek turned back towards the stairs.

“Aren’t we done? He’s alive. You know where to look.” Stiles didn’t move, folding his arms and resting his weight on both his feet, rocking back and forward. Derek wasn’t the only one who knew to ready himself for a fight. Stiles watched him clench his jaw, shake his hand out of an involuntary fist.

“Yeah.” Derek turned away again. “I’ll show you out.”

 

Stiles paused before he got onto the motorcycle. “I’ll be at my dad’s for a few days.” He said it to the empty air but knew Derek would be able to hear him. It was as close as he could come to an apology, an explanation.

 

Rounding the supermarket aisle and running into Derek not twenty four hours later was unexpected and yet the sort of luck Stiles had come to expect. He was wearing a bigger knife this time, a comforting weight in the small of his back. He hadn’t quite worked up to the gun yet. His dad might ask more awkward questions. The sorts of questions Stiles should have answered a half dozen years ago. But instead he’d offered to head out and grab some steaks while his dad hit up the liquor store. Then they could sublimate like Stilinski men did: with meat and booze.

Derek was dressed in another suit. This one was black. It made him seem more real, somehow, someone who had stepped out of the shadows and needed to attract all the attention wherever they were. This wasn’t the Derek Stiles had known. So he ignored him and headed to the checkout. Derek followed him. Stiles loaded up the belt and pulled out his wallet. Derek placed his eggs and milk next to him.

“Stiles.” His voice was contained, but there was something at the very edges of Stiles’ hearing. It wasn’t a growl. In fact, it was almost a whine, high pitched and plaintive.

“Derek.” Stiles could quite enjoy drawling out his name like an insult.

“Hi, Mr Hale!” The girl behind the register was beaming, almost sparkling as she smiled and bounced, ignorant to any tension. “How’re you today?”

Derek smiled. It made him look older. Stiles packed his groceries into the paper bag and held out some bills. The girl ignored him and continued to beam at Derek. 

“You should take his money, Michaela.” Derek pointedly looked at Stiles.

The transaction took moments. Stiles waited while the girl basically threw herself at Derek and he smiled and pretended to be a responsible pillar of the community. Stiles felt as if ants were crawling all over his skin. This didn’t mesh with his memories of Derek, the perception of the man he kept in his head. It didn’t fit into the way Stiles’ world worked.

He had a horrid moment of realization. He had basically become Derek. Derek was respectable and liked and the person old ladies would ask to help with road crossing and grocery carrying. Stiles had become the one they crossed the road to avoid. He rubbed at his suddenly aching head, fingers brushing against one of his scars. That was another thing to hate Derek for: no scars. Werewolf healing meant that all the shit Derek had gone through didn’t leave a single mark on his body. That rankled.

 

The knock on the door late that night wasn’t entirely unexpected. Stiles shrugged and headed to open it, away from the sullen silence in front of the television.

“There’s something wrong with Scott.” It was reassuring that Derek still hadn’t grasped the niceties of conversation.

“Uh huh.” Stiles knew he was being a shit. He leaned against the door jam and looked Derek up and down. Derek wasn’t in any of his suits at least. He wasn’t quite back to the leather, although the black jeans and the grey Henley did emphasize the fact that Derek certainly hadn’t lost any of the muscle definition Stiles had worked hard to gain.

“Fuck, Stiles-“ Derek looked like he was losing some of his cool, detached demeanor. Stiles straightened up from the door, squaring up to him. Then his dad shuffled over to join him.

“Hey, Derek.” There was a warmth there that Stiles didn’t feel Derek deserved. Then his dad stretched out his hand for Derek to shake. “You doing okay? We don’t see you around as much as we used to.” But there wasn’t that taunting, teasing edge that had been waiting for Stiles.

Stiles left the new best friends to exchange small talk. “Let me grab some stuff.”

 

Scott was barricaded in one of the basement rooms - not the one Stiles had cast his spell in but one closer to the main house. He’d been quiet until Stiles and Derek walked up to the grille in the door. Then he’d thrown himself at the door, battering against the impenetrable steel. The high-pitched screech it let out as Scott tried to claw through it sent shivers up his spine. Stiles wasn’t afraid – it was hard to pin down the last time he’d been truly scared of anything. That would have required him to feel something – but he could identify the cold sting as something to worry about. Scott looked feral as he flung himself against the door again and again.

Derek walked away, face folded into a frown. Stiles let him go, watching Scott, listening to his howls, his claws, the thud of his body against the door. “The whole basement is steel reinforced?”

“It’s why it’s still here. It’s why they couldn’t get out.” Derek sprawled at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the rest of the house. “It’s needed.”

“The pack grew, right?” Stiles had kept occasional tabs on Beacon Hills. He’d be lying if he claimed not to. But it was for self-preservation. He didn’t want anyone – or anything – from home to blindside him. 

Scott seemed to be quieter now, settling back down and pacing from side to side. Stiles peered into the cell again. Scott was muttering, grumbling, under his breath, nostrils flaring. He definitely didn’t look like the father of one who still emailed his high school buddy every two weeks whether he heard back or not. Stiles curled his fingers in the bars. In some ways, he’d left so Scott would be safe and the fact he was currently more feral than human made Stiles angry. Or, anyway, as angry as he could let himself get.

“Yeah. A few strays. Orphans. A victim of Peter’s.” Derek’s voice was mainly neutral, as emotionless as Stiles. But Scott reacted, throwing himself against the door again. A terrible suspicion pricked at Stiles’s mind. “You’d like them.”

“I don’t think much of your taste in people. No offense.” Stiles absently watched Scott. “Go up the stairs.”

“What?” Derek stood up, Scott growled and flung himself at the door and Stiles just glared. “Okay.” Derek vanished out of sight and Scott seemed to become calmer and calmer.

“Hey, Scott.” Stiles waited until the claws had started to recede before he spoke but Scott didn’t react like he had to Derek.

“Stiles?” Scott sounded genuinely surprised. He smiled, looking just like the kid Stiles had always termed his BFF. Despite the fact that forever had kinda ended right after high school. “Hey, man.”

“You feeling better?” Stiles looked him over closely.

“I-“ Scott frowned, looking down at his sweat-stained rags of clothes. They might have been sweatpants and a t-shirt at one point. “I’m losing control?”

“Looks like.” Scott looked around the bare cell, jaw tightening. He recognized the problem – and he recognized the probable solution. Stiles rocked on his heels. He needed to be sure before he attempted to cast any more spells. Going wrong would be almost as bad as having no effect at all. He pulled out his cell and dialed Derek. “Are there any other pack members up there?”

Derek huffed out a breath and let silence hang between them for a moment. “Yes.” It was definitely grudging.

“Send one of them down.” Stiles hung up. He could hear footsteps behind him but kept his eyes on Scott. Scott was picking at his clothes, disgusted, but the minute his nostrils flared again, caught the scent, his eyes flashed yellow and he slammed against the door, claws out. Stiles looked around to see Isaac, wide-eyed as ever, hovering uncertainly at the bottom of the stairs. “You can go back up, now.”

Stiles waited for Scott to return to normal and for his own, accustomed, usual emptiness to spread throughout him again. Scott slumped in the corner, a slashed mattress spilling foam offering some relief from the concrete. Stiles remained on his feet, watching through the bars. “You hungry?”

Scott let out a laugh. “Yeah. Stupid, right? I’m losing control and time like I haven’t since I was a kid - shit, what if I was to do that around Vic? – and all I can think about is food.” He looked hopeful as he looked up at Stiles. “What you got?”

“I’m going to make Derek make me something.” Stiles watched closely but Scott didn’t react to the name. Instead he grinned, back to easy and happy and Scott. Stiles half-heartedly wished he could still act like that. He headed up the stairs only to meet a group of anxious werewolves, sprawled around the TV none of them were watching in various poses of disinterest. Derek was leaning against the doorway to the kitchen.

 

“So what you’re saying is that Scott is allergic to us?” Trust Lydia to be the one to pare the facts down to the bare essentials. Stiles shrugged – that was close enough. “And you think you can fix it?”

“I should. I’ll need to make some calls.” Stiles checked his watch – it wasn’t too late to call Europe. Or too early, in their case. “Scott needs some food.”

“How should we…?” One of the new pack members, who looked as young as Stiles had been when he first got involved in this looked confused. And young. And innocent. Stiles bit back a mocking comment. Let the kid be young a while longer.

“I’ll take it.” That seemed to be the signal for everyone to move. Derek stepped back into the kitchen and the others shifted, some heading for the door and others heading upstairs. Stiles looked around. Nothing up here screamed werewolf house. It was just a little larger, had a few more bedrooms, than most other houses around here. He slipped through to the kitchen, watching Derek stick a plate into the microwave. “You’re all pretty settled here.”

“It’s home.” Derek shuffled around, pulling out cutlery and reaching into the back of a cabinet for a tray. He was at home, domestic, everything Stiles had been and that the whole supernatural creatures of the night knowledge had stripped from him. “Why doesn’t Scott react to you?”

Stiles had been contemplating snagging a piece of fruit from the overladen bowl but thought the better of it. "I'm not pack."

"You were his best friend." Derek had a furrow between his eyebrow, looking confused and dangerous at the same time.

"Were. Haven't been for a long time. We weren't properly pack when I was still here anyway." Stiles reached out for the tray, wondering how the hell he was going to fit it through the narrow bars. The bottle of water Derek had laid on it, yes, and even the candy bars. Not the china plate with its balance of protein, carbs and veg. It looked like the type of meal Stiles had made his dad eat. Back when things were normal.

He noticed the slot in the bottom of the door when he took the tray down, though. And listened to Scott's grateful babble and his - still kinda gross - chewing. The guy had never really managed to learn how to eat like a grown up. Or maybe he'd regressed with his having a kid now.

Stiles leaned against the rough brick beside the door. The scratch through his shirt made him feel grounded. He was used to roughing it. Wasn't comfortable with the bed, the constant roof, and the meals and the people around to share them. It wasn't like the last few years of his life in Beacon Hills had been normal, like he'd thought before. He'd still been dealing with the rawness of his mom's death, then Scott got bit and his life started being in danger every second Tuesday. He'd been running from things for more time than he was comfortable admitting. And turning to fight back had seemed like the right choice at the time. 

Scott interspersed his chewing with inane news Stiles had read in his emails. He didn't let on, though, listening to Scott wax lyrical about his daughter and how awesome Allison was and how they were thinking about a new kitchen. The null, the emptiness Stiles had achieved, started to warm, blister and melt under the stream of words. Stiles felt envy and want and something close to an urge to stay. To make amends with his dad and become part of this pack. It could never happen. He wasn't the kid who'd gone away. He stroked a finger along the design exposed on his arm and remembered the witch who'd taught him about isolation and calm and power. She'd tattooed his thigh.

"Why amn't I pack, Scott?" The words were out before Stiles could stop them, a side effect of Scott's impact on his equilibrium. 

"You are, dude. Always. From the start." Scott sounded hurt, shocked. Stiles felt a little like he'd stepped on a puppy's tail or something.

"The spell makes you react to your pack, makes you want to rip them apart. Anyone not in the pack - totally safe. Like me." Stiles dug his nail into the tattoo. The sharp pain seemed to stop the flow of words.

Scott was silent. He still ate, finishing off his food without another word. Then he pushed the tray back through the slot and Stiles heard him settling down on the wall directly behind Stiles. "I've got an idea. The witches or whatever-"

"I think they wanted to be called mages. It's more pretentious." Stiles didn't call himself anything. Just, you know, Stiles. He wasn't sure what label he'd want to take.

"Anyway. They were new in town. They didn't know you, since, you know, you haven't been here. Physically."

"Or in any other way, Scott."

"Hey, no. I email. I think about you." Scott hit the door, making it rattle. His voice was quiet when he spoke again. "Stiles, I miss you, man. You're my best friend."

"Isaac. Derek. Lydia. Allison-" Stiles was prepared to list them all off. Everyone he'd left behind. But it seemed to have the opposite effect. He could feel his own control slipping, feel something akin to tears pricking at his eyes, a lump in his throat.

"They miss you too. And they aren't you." Scott sounded more confident. "None of them are godfather to my kid, you know."

"Someday - and that day may never come - I'll..." Stiles halted his automatic Brando impression mid-flow. "For real?"

"Yeah." Scott let the word hang there, not saying anything else, obviously thinking about what might happen if this spell turned out to be permanent. After a few moments, Stiles shoved himself up. 

"I've got to make a few calls. We'll have you back with them, soon." Even the fact he cared about that made him wonder at himself.

 

It all sounded suspiciously easy. There was a spell on Scott to make him rip his pack apart. The sickos had made it so that even his daughter wouldn’t be spared. The idea was to destroy the pack and Scott completely. That wasn’t happening. Not his pack.

Stiles took a moment after he finished his call to examine the fierceness with which he was regarding Derek’s pack. The protectiveness. He hadn’t felt like that since, well, since he’d left. His training, if he could term it that, had underlined the fact that being attached made him weak, being emotional made him vulnerable and open to attack. He needed to be in control, to be dispassionate, at all times. It was the only to stop the magic from spilling out.

He’d watched one of the girls he’d known be eaten alive by uncontrolled magic. That had made him focus. She’d been distracted by thoughts of her boyfriend back home, apparently. According to the old crone who’d been the one to start him down this path. She’d had tattoos on her cheeks, on her forehead. Stiles didn’t want to know what she’d given up to have those sorts of tattoos done. And then she’d died, taken out by a rabid selkie, and Stiles hadn’t felt anything other than a sort of vague satisfaction when he’d put the beast down.

Being back in Beacon Hills meant that his walls were being chipped at, broken down into useless rubble and, unless he got it all under control, he ran the risk of being eaten alive by his own magic. He couldn’t stay but he couldn’t leave, not until Scott was safe and his dad and Derek and everyone else. He could taste the feelings on his tongue, bitter and unwanted and hot. They burned in a way that Stiles thought he’d left behind the first time he ran out of town.

Derek coming to see if he was okay or if he needed anything made it worse. The burn travelled down his throat, into his chest and spread throughout him. Stiles had wanted to let it run its course, sweep through his body. He could feel his cock twitch as Derek stretched up, exposing a sliver of skin at his waistband. Stiles could remember wanting it, wanting Derek, back when he’d been a kid and the redoubling of memory and here and all the unwanted emotions made him tremble.

He needed to take back control and he needed to get the hell out of town. And the fact that the counterspell would require him and Derek to work together just seemed to be another test of his wavering control.

 

Scott slammed against his cell when Derek and Stiles went back down to the basement. The house had quieted, people headed to their own homes or upstairs to bed. Stiles felt better the quieter the house got. He needed all of his concentration for the spell and he wasn’t used to having to deal with that many people for that long anymore. He never really had been, to be honest. He liked his family and his small group of friends and his own company. Stiles could breathe a little easier in the silent damp of the basement.

They ended up in the same room he’d cast the location spell. “I’ll just… I have to take off my clothes. You…” Stiles had a sudden flash of memory. He’d been seventeen and it had been when Derek was shifting through his full wolf form and he’d driven up to the house early one morning to check a book when Derek had walked out of the woods, naked, not caring. Stiles had jerked off to that image for a long long time.

“It’s more effective if I’m naked?” Derek was already kicking off his shoes.

“The energy doesn’t get caught on anything. If that makes sense.” Stiles shrugged out of his shirt and bent to draw his containment circle. He needed to add in runes but they were part of the ritual so he’d have to be all naked and bending over which wasn’t a good look for anyone. Derek got down to his underwear and stood there. Of course he wore boxer briefs. They were even black. Stiles thought it was as if Derek was constantly trying to be attractive but that wouldn’t be in keeping with Derek’s general attitude. Derek had almost seemed uncomfortable with his looks, with the fact anyone had been attracted to him. Or maybe he’d just been uncomfortable with Stiles.

There was no more reasonable excuse to delay. Derek stripped off his boxers and stepped over the neat charcoal line, coming to stand in front of Stiles. It was difficult to keep his eyes fixed on Derek’s feet. Some vestigial urge sprung up in him to skim his eyes upwards, drink in the strength of Derek’s thighs, the lean flex of his stomach, the broad sweep of his chest. The eyes that seemed to strip away every layer of armor and control.

“Have a seat.” Stiles knelt up as Derek settled down, kneeling opposite him and placing his hands flat on his thighs. Derek wasn’t looking at him, at least, as Stiles settled himself and grabbed his charcoal stick again. He’d broken a fresh one out of his supplies for this. It was going to take some serious concentration and a hell of a lot of symbology. Stiles cast his eyes over Derek, then, seeking any new marks. He wasn’t expecting to find anything. It wasn’t like Derek scarred after all. But he also didn’t have any tattoos other than the swirl Stiles remembered. He felt Derek’s eyes taking in all his tattoos again, eyes tracing the patterns. It helped to raise the magic. Stiles could feel the initial prickle of power in the hair at the back of his neck.

Stiles used the stick to draw down the curve that started at his neck and ended at his belly. Derek’s eyes followed his hand, unreadable and dark. Then Stiles leaned forward and started drawing on Derek, a curl of black on his cheek, dots on the left side of his ribs above his heart. Stiles had to hush him, a grimy finger against his lips, only once. The power built, swirling against the confines of the circle, seeking any way out or through. But Stiles had done this often enough to be canny to the ways of magic. The runes he inscribed near the rim of the circle nailed the power down even further, filling him to the brim with a kind of static electricity until he could only remember the spell and nothing else. He even forgot to be uncomfortable as he moved around Derek, brushing against him now and again as Stiles finished his preparations.

Settling in front of Derek for a second time seemed natural and right. Stiles closed his eyes and brought his hand along his thigh, covering a pattern that was like a group of shells or scales. When he opened his eyes, he saw the world in a slightly different way. There were bonds coming from Derek, thick ones, cables that tied him to a world outside of Stiles and his circle. Stiles had a weak, thin couple, even one that tentatively tied him to Derek. Nothing like the reinforced steel of Derek’s pack bonds. It was easy to identify the one that belonged to Scott. There was a black scum on its surface, patchy but visible. Stiles focused his attention on that one, taking Derek’s hand and holding tight until he was somehow here and yet also inside the bond, feeling the affection and the sheer respect that Derek had for Scott. It must go two ways for the bond to be this clear and substantial. Stiles tried not to feel jealous as he used the power at his disposal to burn away the spell.

Coming back to himself was a little strange. Stiles didn’t tend to cast spells like this anyway, but even more uncommon was the fact he was casting a spell with someone he had a bond with, no matter how fragile it was. He returned to his own skin, sure, but part of him was reluctant to give up that bond. All the energy that hadn’t been used in utterly destroying the witch’s spell had to go somewhere. Stiles had moved almost before he was aware he was shifting. Derek seemed frozen in place, eyes wide, but at least he was watching Stiles now and the expression on his face was familiar. Hunger. Want. Need. The moment Stiles tugged him forward using their still joined hands, Derek seemed to give in.

They ended up side by side on the cold floor, legs entangled and mouths breathing air into each other’s mouth. Stiles was using his eyes to catalogue all the things he thought he’d forgotten about Derek. Like how very red his mouth was. How he could never quite put a name to the color of Derek’s eyes. Like how much he wanted Derek. The realization crashed over him, a tidal wave, sweeping him away. Derek rolled on top, pressing down against Stiles, all pretense and hesitation gone. Stiles was aware, distantly, that he was hard, harder than he’d been in a long time. He was more concerned by the fact Derek was also hard and rutting against his hip as he held Stiles close and finally kissed him.

In all the stories, the kiss broke the spell. Here it was almost the opposite. The magic still throbbing in the air seemed to concentrate between them, sealing them together. Stiles moved his hips unthinkingly, unerringly seeking out the most pleasure, the most heat. He undulated, twisted and let out a continuous stream of moans that were instantly swallowed by Derek. Derek’s mouth moved against his, kissing, licking inside, hot, wet and demanding. It was all too much, overload, and Stiles couldn’t take much more before he whited out, coming hard and feeling Derek cover his stomach correspondingly. But it was more than just the physical need: Stiles felt like every cell, every fiber of his being, was consumed by Derek.

He was still panting when all the color seemed to leech from the room. Stiles coughed. Then Derek ran a hand up over his arm, cupped Stiles’s head to prevent it from bashing against the cold floor and drew him into a soft kiss. There wasn’t any magic driving that, nothing supernatural. This was just Derek showing how much he… what? Cared for Stiles? How much he liked him?

Loved him?

Stiles scrambled away, breaking the circle with a quick scuff of his foot. He clambered back into his clothes, not even attempting to fasten buttons or tie shoelaces. “Scott should be fine, now. He might sleep. Call me – or don’t. He’ll be fine.” And Stiles fled up the stairs, past Scott’s cell and into the cold of the dark night without waiting for any response. 

 

Stiles knew he should have expected something. Maybe Scott getting all up in his business or his dad sighing and not talking as he shoved a glass of whiskey over the table. Maybe even a Lydia intervention. He’d not “enjoyed” one of those since the tail end of senior year after all. He should have expected what did happen too. There was a woman at the end of the driveway to the Hale house when he pulled up at the stop sign, still stinking of magic and Derek. He had a moment of wondering what the hell she was doing all the way out here without a car or anything when he realized all too late who she was.

It was also too late to get his shields up. Some kind of glass container shattered at his feet and he was enveloped in a stinking lime green cloud of smoke. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Even grabbing one of his emergency charms didn’t work. He had a moment of admiring the workmanship before he keeled over, head pounding, guts churning and with the understanding that this was it. He wasn’t going to be able to get out of this one any time soon. It would teach him what the consequences of coming to help his old school friends was good for, why he should never have come home.

 

They had him in a cage. That- okay, that was bad. Stiles tamped down on the urge to shake the bars, look for weaknesses and instead sprawled backwards on the stained mattress they were keeping him on. This was a classy joint. No concrete floor for Stiles this time. He scratched a rune in the palm of his hand and wasn’t entirely surprised when nothing happened. They were ready for him specifically. This wasn’t a werewolf holding cage, although Stiles could see the car battery and chains across the floor, next to the brick wall. They were prepared for anything. Whoever they were. Stiles rolled around, casually, trying to make it look like he was stretching. He couldn’t see to the ends of the building – just endless cold floor and empty walls. There didn’t appear to be any movement either but he could see the slow red blink of a camera in the dark shadows. He was being watched.

Stiles lay back down, pillowing his head on his hands and contemplated the top of his cage and the bright fluorescent light pointing down at him. He hadn’t been trapped in a cage for quite some time. Not since he’d left Beacon Hills the first time.

All he reasons for leaving, heading off to college and not looking back, came crashing back. He’d finally done the thing he’d always promised himself – or persuaded himself – would never happen. He’d acted on the ridiculous, crushing, stupid feeling he’d had for Derek Hale. Even when he’d taken advantage (shameless, but he’d been a teenage boy) of the whole lacrosse team glory thing, he’d had this lingering thought/recurring fantasy of Derek pressing him down onto his bed or into the nearest wall – maybe across the kitchen table even – and fucking him hard. He’d thought about kissing Derek too, until his lips turned red raw and swollen.

He’d kissed Derek once. There had been a closed mouth and a sad “I wish you hadn’t done that” and then Stiles had not looked back. It seemed ridiculous that he was still so hung up on his high school crush. Sure they’d both come all over each other, but it was the way that Derek offered more than a quick orgasm. He was offering Stiles the other thing he’d turned his back on – home.

 

Stiles had had quite enough of remembering all the runes he could and the incantations he’d memorized a long time ago by the time someone came to see him. He vaguely recognized her as the woman by the side of the road.

“You’re not working alone,” Stiles said, as she poked a sandwich and a bottle of water between the bars of his cage. “You also don’t just want me.”

She turned away. “They’ll come for you soon. Then we’ll see.” She was confident and cool and Stiles ground the bottle between his palms. He needed free – let him out of here and it’d be a fair fight. Trapped in this cage, behind what had to be very strong wards, he was back to being as useless as he’d been in high school. He was surprised how much that thought hurt. His emotions seemed to be redoubling through his head, finally slipped from the tight lease he’d been holding them in. It all made his chest hurt.

“You think they’ll come for me? I’m not part of their pack. They’ll not even think to look for me. They’ll just think I’ve skipped town again. I’m going to eat your food and drink your water and sit right here until you get bored and try for one of them again because they are not coming for me.” The witch paused and then kept walking. “They’ll never come for me.”

The words echoed around what must be a damn big empty space. They also echoed in Stiles’s head. He ate the food and lay back down. He should catch up on his sleep and maybe that would let him get everything under control again.

 

A pulling sensation woke him this time. He was still in the cage but it felt like something was pulling out his guts with a hot poker. The wave of pain swept over him, leaving him panting, drenched in cold sweat. Low chanting came from all around him and when he got the strength under him to push up off the mattress, he could see a ring of hooded figures, holding lit candles, surrounding him.

“Fucking clichés,” he muttered, before the pain forced him flat again. This was… yeah, this was bad. In front of his eyes, one of the swirls on the back of his hands seemed to lift, waver in the air, before dissipating and leaving the skin blank. Stiles stared blankly at it for a moment before realizing what was happening. They were stripping his magic away. Stiles gritted his teeth and pushed upright, forcing himself against the bars of the cage. It was solid, iron, a hundred years old. No shoddy modern construction. The cage had lines cut into the metal that would only continue to sap him. Another wave of pain and another tattoo vanished off his skin, like they were chipping away at him, taking him away from himself.

Stiles didn’t scream when the flesh-eating unicorn piece on his back was lifted, excruciating line by line. It hurt worse than getting it done had. He’d been half drunk and excited when it was done, indulging in some pretty unsafe sex after it had been inked into his skin, the tattooist mesmerised and eager. Derek’s hands had clutched at it, earlier, keeping him safe from the concrete of the basement. The pack would never be able to defeat a witch all hopped up on Stiles’s stolen power. He bit his cheek rather than call out, blamed the watering of his eyes on that rather than the thought of the pack splintered and destroyed.

There was a crash from behind him, that familiar sound of a car smashing through a wall. Stiles had been the one driving a succession of vehicles in a move that was always shock and awe. He didn’t recognize the SUV as he writhed under the influence of another tattoo being stripped from him but he recognized the people spilling out from behind it – Derek, Scott, Jackson, Boyd. Erica swung over the car, slamming feet first into the head of one of the witches. It made a dull splatter when it hit against the cage and the sharp copper stench of blood overwhelmed Stiles for a moment. He could feel the hold on him lessening but he was still shaking with aftershocks as the pack systematically took out the coven, witch by witch. The coven was fighting back, spells visible through his half-opened eyes, but the pack seemed to drift around them, reflexes faster than ever.

Stiles opened his mouth to warn them about the magic but he couldn’t seem to get the words out of his throat. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. The werewolves were flattened to the floor by an invisible hand, pinned still. Derek tried to fight it, made it up to his hands and knees before being forced down again. Stiles could still move but it was hard, like sinking through molasses or quicksand. He rolled closer to the edge of the cage, trying to reach a hand out past the bars. But that invisible force field was still in place.

Then an arrow flew through the air, disrupting everything.

Whilst the witch stopped it an inch from her heart, the concentration it required made the spell break, briefly. Scott slammed something against the lock on the cage door before yelling out, “Down.” Stiles flattened himself to the mattress just in time to feel a wave of heat and light sweep over him. He felt the ever present force that had been the cage bars vanish and rolled over the threshold. The door was impressively melted, useless slag, but he didn’t want to risk being trapped again. Then the witch started the spell again, forcing the wolves back against the floor. Stiles pushed through it. He wasn’t going to be able to use magic – he tried, now he was free of the cage, but the tattoo left on his wrist just didn’t react – but there was a knife they’d been too arrogant to take in his boot. He doubted the witch had the experience to maintain more than one spell at a time, especially when she was exerting all that force. Wolves weren’t easy to keep down.

She watched him coming, eyes wide. Blood started to drip, black and poisoned, from her nose, and Stiles knew she was beaten. She kept the spell up, right until he was close enough to push the knife through her rib cage, low between the ribs and pointed up. You didn’t stab a person straight on. Stiles didn’t take pleasure as he felt the witch clutch at him. She wasn’t even trying to stop him, clinging on to the spell with the very last of her life force. He twisted the knife and felt the spell pop out of existence. 

Derek came to stand at his shoulder. “Is that her?”

“She cast the spells.” Stiles shrugged. He looked around, noticing the camera light still red and flashing. “She wasn’t- It’s not all her.”

“I don’t know her.” Scott had rolled the body over, closing her eyes gently. Scott was still entirely too innocent despite everything. Stiles rubbed a hand over his face. He was still massively weak. He was going to have to sleep for days to even regain any reserves. He turned to head to the SUV when Derek caught his shoulder. Heat seemed to pool out from Derek’s hand, swirling around Stiles hot and hard. He didn’t want to think about it – what it could mean. It was just his body reacting to someone whose come still stained his stomach.

“This was personal, Stiles. This was someone who knew us.” Derek raised his head, sniffing. The others spun around, looking too. A mocking handclap came from the shadows at the far end of the warehouse.

Stiles crouched down, wiping his knife on the skirt of the dead witch. He didn’t know what use it would be but it was better than nothing. No one was going to say that Stiles Stilinkski didn’t go down fighting. When he clambered back to his feet, he found himself shoulder to shoulder with Derek looking at what had once been Gerard Argent.

The last time Stiles had seen Gerard, he’d been little more than a puddle of black goo. Now he stood, almost back to the demanding patriarch he’d known, hair white, face fixed. It was more the way he moved and the fact Stiles could see huge gaps in his body wherever his clothes fluttered to the side. It made Stiles’s gorge rise, to see this ruin of a man. Erica ran at him, confident in her speed and strength, only to be tossed aside like a sack of potatoes. That prompted Scott to run in too, the violence unfreezing him from his shock. He met much the same fate, bouncing off one of the metal girders that supported the roof. An arrow from Allison shattered into splinters beside Gerard’s arm.

Stiles knew he was weak, was wandering dangerously close to the point of no return. He had some reserves but he’d basically thrown everything he could at the witch who’d held them all captive. Soon he’d be facing the same fate as her, tapping into something beyond spells and incantations. Some practitioners referred to it as life force but Stiles liked to call it his spark. It was obviously that Gerard was being held together by some pretty strong magic – magic that was still working. Stiles could feel the remnants of the spell from earlier, tattoos still sliding off his skin pretty inexorably. He should use them while he could.

There was a part of Stiles that had always know that he would end up dying here. Maybe not this warehouse or in front of this particular villain. But he’d know it would be here, in Beacon Hills, with the – with his – pack. Stiles couldn’t backwards from ten, drawing everything he had left together. He could feel the buzz of power flickering fitfully like his Jeep used to on a wet day, stuttering to start. He coaxed it into being, nursing it. His forced tattoo, the brand the Alpha pack had left on his skin, fuelled his will as it burned its way off his skin, the control over his emotions vanishing as Stiles let his anger take over. It made the magic burn up faster and more powerful than he’d even thought possible. He threw everything he had at Gerard who shuddered all over, head twisting from side to side faster than humanly possible.

“Now, Derek,” Stiles bit out, darkness flickering at the edge of his vision. He felt the slick sick feeling of blood coming from his nose, tasted copper in his mouth. The last thing he saw was Derek leaping forward, transformed into a huge black wolf, eyes red. Then Stiles felt the last of his power sputter out and he knew the concrete floor was coming to meet him. He must have passed out before the expected pain hit.

It really was like slipping into a deep and peaceful sleep.

 

Then he woke up.

 

Stiles wasn’t entirely sure he was awake. He could have been dreaming. He’d had this dream often enough after all. He was in his old bedroom, still frozen nostalgically the way he’d left it at the end of his high school career, the end of his life in Beacon Hills. He woke up to find Derek sprawled alongside him, warm and soft. Derek’s hand brushed over his hip, holding him possessively. It was that touch that persuaded Stiles that he wasn’t dreaming, that he wasn’t dead. Especially when Derek lifted it off like he’d been scalded when Stiles moved, easing his aching muscles.

He didn’t feel as bad as he probably should. He was stiff, probably from lying in the same position for too long, but he didn’t feel like he had been dehydrated, starved and magically beaten into a pulp. But he was awake.

Derek was staring at him too. That was too familiar, too much like old times, for all that they’d never actually shared a bed despite Stiles’s youthful imaginings.

“I’m going to shower,” Stiles told him, ducking out of the room before Derek could say anything.

 

In the shower, Stiles examined his body. There were none of the inked marks he’d come to expect on his skin at all. Twisting to look in the mirror showed that his back was clear too. The only marks were the moles that had always dotted his skin and the scars his magic had brought him, some white, some red and raised. He still looked younger, softer somehow. And he had to admit to himself that he wasn’t going to miss some of the marks. Some of them had been done under duress, done to him without his permission even. They were signs of his failure, permanent on his skin. But they were also the source of his power. What was he going to do now?

What would he do without his spark? Stiles sluiced the water over himself absently, mind trying to work out what was going on. He could feel his heart beating faster and faster until he dared himself to try, to do it. He tried to cast a small spell, a summoning, to bring a towel flying across the room. Instead Stiles doubled up in pain, head thumping. He nearly slipped and fell into the bottom of the shower and would have if the door hadn’t flown open and Derek rushed in. Derek grabbed him, pulled him out and sat on the floor, Stiles sprawled all over his body, shivering and shuddering as the pain took its time dispersing. 

Derek held him close when he tried to move away. “I’m wet, dude.”

Derek just reached out and snagged a towel, dropping it clumsily around Stiles’s shoulders. His hand reattached itself, dragging up and down Stiles’s side, potentially drying but more checking he was okay. He’d seen Derek do this to members of the pack, to Scott even, but Stiles had never experienced it personally. He tried to push up but Derek kept him there with minimal effort. It made anger well up in Stiles again, wild and uncontrollable after too many years of being tamped down.

“You have to let go, Derek. You’ve got experience of that. Should be easy.” Stiles thrust with the limited strength he had but Derek let him push up this time. Stiles held onto the sink until the room stopped spinning then headed back to his bedroom. Derek followed after a pause.

“I didn’t let you go. You left.” Derek’s voice was flat, emotions contained with a will Stiles was vaguely impressed by considering how many times Derek had just pushed him against a wall and threatened to rip his throat out.

“After you shoved me away, told me there was nothing there, that I’d never be part of your pack.” Stiles pulled on fresh boxers and a t-shirt, the first ones he could pull from his duffle. He didn’t look at Derek but crawled back into his bed. He was still shuddering from the aftermath of pain. “I think that was pretty unambiguous.”

Derek was silent which Stiles took for assent. He let his mind drift over the things he’d need to do before leaving town. Tune up the bike, laundry, work out what the hell was going to happen with his life now. He was going to need to keep the loss of his power as much of a secret as he could. There were people out there who’d be only too glad to track him down and kill him after all. 

“I was wrong,” Derek said. “I’m sorry.”

Stiles rolled over to make sure Derek was still in the room, that it wasn’t his overactive imagination that had Derek saying most of the things Stiles had wanted him to say years ago. Derek was watching him closely, eyes intent. He wasn’t angry or sad, he was just stating a fact. Then Derek’s cell rang.

“I have to go to work.” Derek shrugged. “Come by tonight if you want to talk.”

Stiles waved as Derek closed the door behind him and headed down the stairs. He heard the faint rumble of his dad’s voice, of Derek’s, before the front door closed. Stiles eyed his window frame. 

 

Eventually he was done with trying to get back to sleep. He slowly made his way downstairs, feeling every step jar his bones. His dad was in the kitchen when he came through, drawn by the scent of coffee like a bee to nectar. The newspaper lowered, raised and lowered again.

“Stiles?” His dad sounded puzzled and rather confused.

“Yeah, Dad.” Stiles took a long draw of the black, bitter heaven from the pot. Caffeine really was one of nature’s true bounties.

“What…? Where are your tattoos?” Stiles blinked a few times and turned to look at his dad who was staring like he’d never seen Stiles before. Or, more accurately, as if this was a version of Stiles he hadn’t seen for a very long time.

“They burned off,” Stiles said. “It was one of those supernatural things we never really talked about.”

His dad went back to the paper, before laying it flat on the table. He’d been reading the baseball report so Stiles felt doubly honored. “We should have.” His dad pinned him with the sort of look he’d given up on halfway through Stiles’s junior year. “When I found out-“

“It was too late, Dad. I’d already pretty much burned my bridges by then.” Stiles shrugged and leaned back against the counter, drinking his coffee. “I’d already screwed things up with Derek and the Pack.”

“I don’t think you did, Stiles.” His dad glanced around, uncomfortable, before returning his eyes to Stiles. “Derek came around a lot, after you went to college. So did Scott. And Allison. They filled me in on things, even after I retired.”

Stiles drank some more of his coffee. He was feeling weirdly naked for all that he was wearing jeans and two shirts. His old protective coloring. Stiles ran his hand over his hair, tangling his fingers in it. He wasn’t sure how to deal with any of this, least of all his dad trying to build bridges Stiles thought he’d basically napalmed.

“They called you, didn’t they?” His dad wasn’t going back to the paper anytime soon, it seemed.

Stiles shrugged. “Because they needed me to help. My skills. Which I don’t have anymore. So there’s that.”

“You don’t have them anymore?” His dad came to his feet, rounded the table. “Are you going to be okay?”

Stiles leveled his dad with a steady stare but he could only maintain it for so long. He was just worn out, exhausted. Tired beyond belief. “I don’t know.”

His dad wrapped him in a hug. It was awkward but it was real. It only lasted a few minutes before his dad went back to his seat. Stiles took a couple of moments to calm down, re-center himself. “So, uh, Dad.” His voice was rough and he had to cough to clear the sudden lump. “What does Derek actually do?”

 

The bike still achieved the kind of attention Stiles had once craved, powering its way down Main Street. He parked in front of the town hall and leaned back in the seat and listened to the bike engine tick over as it cooled. Derek worked here. His dad had described it as “like Deputy Mayor but that’s not his title. He basically does all the things the Mayor doesn’t want to do.” Derek wasn’t just acclimatized to human society – he helped to keep it running smoothly.

The image of Derek the first time they’d seen him, when he’d come back to Beacon Hills, all black leather and scowl and thousand yard stare wavered in Stiles’s mind. Then another image, of a teenager, dark circles around his eyes, wrapped in a blanket and sitting on his dad’s sofa at work, jaw clenched against all the news of his world being destroyed. Stiles scrubbed his hand over his face after he pulled off his helmet. It was almost too much, to remember all that Derek had been and then to think about him now, sitting in an office, being polite. Filing. Derek would file things. Stiles had to see this.

Beacon Hills had never been big enough to warrant a proper town hall, all grand and columned. Instead it had a building which served the entire county, built when the town had expanded in the sixties, all concrete and glass. The door whooshed open, spilling out cool air, as Stiles stood uncertainly in front of it. The courthouse took over half the building and the city offices the other. There had been enough concession to the status of the building to put in a staircase where brides would have their pictures taken after a quickie ceremony in front of the judge sometimes. Right now, Stiles would do best to put all thoughts of brides out of his head as Derek was standing where the stairs split in two to curve up to the two halves of the building. He was dressed in one of his sober, business suits, something that made sense now. His hair was mostly tamed, although licks of it still stuck up at the front. He’d seen Stiles – or smelled him, or something – but was talking to a woman with a heavy looking briefcase about something. Stiles waited at the bottom of the staircase. 

Derek looked natural here, right. He looked at home just like he had in the rebuilt house, surrounded by all the members of his pack, old and new. A tiny piece of what Stiles had felt that morning in the house seemed to lodge in his heart again. From the way Derek smiled as he walked down the steps, Stiles wondered if that meant he could feel at home again here. He’d need to hear some more explanation, think about it. But also he really didn’t have anywhere else to call home.

A shot rang out from the other side of the glass. Stiles knew it was from the other side of the glass because the sound of the window shattering was one of the first things he heard even before he realized that he’d heard a gun fire. Derek sprang off the steps, halfway down, leaping towards him. Stiles spun around, unthinking, and flung up his hand. He’d reeled off the defensive spell before even thinking about it. Then he slammed his eyes shut, expecting the pain from before in the bathroom to hit him again. Or the bullet. Either.

He peeled one eye open experimentally. Derek was crouched in front of him and, in front of Derek, the bullet and the shards of glass that had been flying alongside it hung in mid-air. Stiles lowered his hand and the whole mess fell to the ground. Derek ran out of the smashed window, the glass scattering like diamonds under his smart, polished shoes and Stiles followed. His boots ground the glass under his feet. Then he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Derek as the cops grabbed a man in a camouflage coat, gun carefully cradled in another cop’s arms.

“So, um, hi,” Stiles said. Derek huffed out a laugh that startled Stiles so much he had to look at him. The weird overlay of all the different Dereks Stiles had known fought it out in his head again. He didn’t know this Derek, not really. “Think you can take the rest of the day off?” 

 

Derek still had that half smile on his face as he climbed off the back of Stiles’s bike. Stiles had a spare helmet but reckoned that werewolf healing would do away with the necessity for leathers. He shrugged out of his helmet, hung it on the back of the bike. Derek had been a line of heat all up against his back and once they’d left the town proper behind, his arms had shifted from holding on to the back of the seat to grabbing Stiles around his waist. It had been intimate and close and spoke of trust and want and need beyond almost anything Stiles had been prepared for or even prepared to feel in return. He wasn’t really ready for this, but he took Derek’s outstretched hand and let himself be led into the house.

There was a woman in the kitchen, one of Derek’s new wolves, but she just waved and smiled and turned away as Derek towed Stiles towards the stairs, up them, along a sunlit hallway and into his room. The bed was perfectly made but then Derek hadn’t exactly slept in it for a few nights. There was a pile of clothes flung over a chair in the corner and a book with its spine bent open on the nightstand. Then Derek was a long line of heat up against his back again.

“Why didn’t it hurt?” Stiles mused, as he leaned back. Something else seemed to chip loose inside him. He was almost tempted to pinch himself. He might have dreamed about this happening once upon a time and a hell of a lot more recently too, in moments of extreme weakness. 

“The magic?” Derek’s breath was warm against his skin and Stiles shivered. He might have already been naked with Derek and they’d come but this was different. There was intent here not to get off, or to hurt, or to take whatever he could from the other person before giving too much of himself. Stiles had an inkling this was going to be the start of something he wasn’t really ready for and had been waiting for years to happen. “I’ve got a theory.”

“Yeah?” Stiles let his hands fall to his side, slide backwards. He could feel Derek’s legs through the thin material of his suit pants.

“I think you’re pack, now. I think your magic is tied to that.” Derek was closer again, impossibly, and when Stiles craned his neck around he could brush his lips across Derek’s cheek. It wasn’t enough. “I’ve heard of that happening before.”

Stiles puzzled it over, his fingers tracing absent patterns on Derek’s legs, remembering all the magic that had passed between them, the bond, faint as it had been, that already existed. Maybe that had something to do with it. Stiles felt another one of those wild, over-whelming spikes of feelings. If he was tied to the pack, if he was useful, they’d never let him go and that made him…content. “If I protect the pack, the magic doesn’t hurt?”

Derek’s patience was obviously done. He used his grip on Stiles’s legs to spin him around and hold him close. “I don’t care, you know, about magic or pack right now.”

Stiles met Derek’s eyes steadily. Then he ran out of patience too. His kiss this time was much more tentative, soft. Derek responded in kind, kissing Stiles like he was made of porcelain. The kiss seemed to last throughout the time it took to stumble to the bed, through all the struggles out of too many layers of clothing – seriously, undershirts, why did Derek really need one of those? And why did his boots have so many laces? – and then the kiss became something else.

Derek took his time, mouthing over Stiles, tracing the path between his scars with teeth and stubble, lips and tongue. It made Stiles writhe and twist and try to steer Derek lower. Derek just grinned wickedly at him and sucked a mark low into Stiles’s side. It wasn’t a permanent mark but for some reason it felt just like getting one of his tattoos, a low throb deep in his bones, an electric connection to his cock which jumped against his belly, leaving a smear of pre-come. Derek licked that off before finally wrapping his lips around Stiles’s cock.

Stiles’s world narrowed down to that warm wet heat in a way that very few things had ever taken all of his attention. He struggled to breathe even, as Derek’s tongue traced patterns on the underside of his cock, rolling down the vein and following it with his mouth. His hands were warm on Stiles’s thighs and Stiles gave in, running his hand over Derek’s hair, skimming across his neck, across his shoulders. Derek kissed him again, chest heaving against Stiles’s own heavy chest. Stiles’s heart felt like it was going to beat all the way out of him with the way it seemed suddenly loud and intense.

“Shh,” Derek said, pressing a wet open mouthed kiss over Stiles’s heart. “I’ve got you.”

It was the sort of endearment that people who were lovers exchanged not whatever Derek and he were. Stiles froze, stiffened under Derek and pushed at his shoulders. He didn’t need anyone to ‘get’ him. He had told himself to stop wanting that when Derek had pushed him away back in high school.

Derek held himself up without effort, for all that his eyes were nearly black and sweat beaded his hairline and he looked at Stiles. “You got me too, you know.” And Stiles remembered Derek saying he was wrong and he was sorry. Stiles dragged him down into a kiss, using it to forget thinking and worrying, twisting himself around Derek like rope around an anchor. When Derek pushed into him, Stiles let the sensation take over him, drive him wild.

Derek kissed him through it and beyond, never stopping.

 

Sometimes Stiles used to wonder what his life would have been like if he’d managed to persuade Derek to fuck him back in high school. Would he have gone out into the world, gone to college, turned his body into something that wasn’t him? Would he have survived Beacon Hills?

He had a new tattoo, low on his hip, an echo of the one on Derek’s back. He had his bike and a new job in the town’s independent bookstore and sometimes, when he was riding very slowly around the yard with Victoria squealing her delight from his lap, he let himself realize he was happy. It all felt like home.


End file.
